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Food, Food and More Food

So this is supposed to be a writing blog, but it is mine so I can write whatever I want – and today I want to talk about food.

I don’t particularly love to cook, but I love to eat, and I love to see other people enjoying a meal I prepared. I pretend to be upset when food that I cooked is eaten in record time, but inside I feel a bit of pleasure that the meal was THAT good.

Please don’t mention this to my family. I like cooking when I want to do it, and not when I am expected to do it.

You know I like to promote others first. 🙂 The Queen of Barbadian Chefs, my ‘Stepmudda’ prepared this meal for me last Sunday. I have stalked this lady in the kitchen, and yet I cannot get my rice to come out like hers. It is so frustrating! She uses onions, celery, garlic, thyme, seasoning and puts a pigtail in the boiling water, so you know this rice doesn’t even need any gravy. There are few places where people fight to eat white rice straight from de pot – de Stepmudda house is one of them.

The spare ribs…lawd. It brings a tear to my eye thinking about them. They came out of the oven and the family had a moment of silence.

Stepmudda makes great salads too! The woman is the Midas of food – everything she touches is golden. The potato salad is perfect; in fact, I can only eat her potato salad. That’s the downside of perfection, because everyone else’s is always lacking. I don’t even bother to try it anywhere else.

I did however make the Black Bean Salad. Here’s a better picture:

Black Bean Salad

A few years ago I hated all things vegetable, but a friend got me to try a black bean salad, and I enjoyed it! Afterwards I had to battle cognitive dissonance for my liking for black beans against my perception of vegetables – A battle that I have happily passed onto my little sister, who was even more adverse to veggies than I was.

She came into the kitchen while I was preparing this meal and cried out “Yay! Black Beans!” and then stopped short, looking disturbed. Then she turned to me and said, “What have you done to me?” Ha! This is easy to make: black beans, corn, cherry tomatoes, green olives (some people prefer black), avocado, onion, oregano, lime juice, salt and pepper to taste. The recipe called for olive oil but I used this olive oil and vinegar mix, which tastes pretty good. It’s great to eat with tortilla chips!

The day was not over. Stepmudda reason that she’s doing a chicken for us to eat later with some wine outside on the lawn. Her chicken is always good, but check what came out of the oven:

Stuffed Baked Chicken

Look at that beauty.

Keep looking…

Scroll back up for one last glance…

Lawdamercy!

Due to popular demand, I have to get the recipe from her. I do know that she made the stuffing using Eclipse biscuits, and you see the green seasoning stuffed in the chicken breast? She makes that herself. I watch her chop the chives, garlic, onions, peppers and seasonings herself to make authentic Bajan seasoning. None of this bottled stuff is good enough for her.

Anyway the chicken was amazing – the flesh came away from the bone with a flick of the finger, and it was juicy and delicious. We didn’t even make it to the lawn lol We stood right there in that kitchen and ate it.

Shake all purpose seasoning (Goya) and favourite herbs (parsley/oregano) over chicken. Cover with foil and bake at 350.

Spanish Omlette

Right…so over to my stuff.

I don’t have the golden touch, but I try. Below is one of my favourite recipes that I got from my Spanish friends while studying in Europe – Spanish Omlette aka Tortilla. It’s so easy to make; the only ingredients are eggs, potatoes, onion and salt, plus a bit of oil to fry. The hard part is flipping the omlette and maintaining that circle shape. Since I can’t flip, I wait until one side is fully cooked, cover the frying pan with a plate, turn it over, and then slide it back into the pan. It does the job.

I made a small salad for the side: lettuce, cherry tomatoes, olives, mozzarella cheese sprinkled with balsamic vinegar. It didn’t come from a recipe; I had to go supermarket shopping and these ingredients were the only things left in the refrigerator. It was good though! This was my “after-gym” meal.

Speaking of “After gym”, I went to the supermarket after a work out and came across “Scalloped Sweet Potatoes” in the food section. Now I had never tried it, and had to buy it, despite the ridiculously high price. I have this thing where I like to try food before I die lol Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. For instance, this weekend I ordered a Canoli from a restaurant, Mama Mia’s, bypassing all of the chocolate ganaches, gelato and cheesecakes, simply because I had never tried it before. It wasn’t my cup of tea (although the pizza, pasta and service at Mama Mia’s was great), and the lovely owner didn’t charge me for it when I told her I didn’t like it.

How did I get into a review of Mama Mia’s? Hmm…maybe I better start blogging about restaurants. 🙂

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes and Oat Crusted Baked Chicken

Right back to my sweet potatoes. I tried to re-create the dish using two cheeses; Cheddar and Mozzarella. Ok fine…I had two cheeses in the fridge that were on the on the brink of expiration, so I had to use them. It didn’t come out as great as the one I bought from the supermarket, but it was pretty good for my first try.

The highlight was the chicken! I am trying to cut flour from my diet, so I put oats in the blender, and made oat flour! I added some spices, covered the chicken in the mixture and Voila! It tasted great, and it was healthy! Will definitely be doing that again.

A couple weeks ago I had this craving for burgers, but I was too lazy to get up and go buy one. So…I decided to make them myself! Now who said nothing good ever comes from being lazy? I swear, I will never buy burgers from the supermarket again! These were so good; I gave some to some family members and friends, who all requested more.

Homemade Burgers

I used Grade A beef, chives, onions, celery, seasonings and used a bit of the oat flour+ egg white as a binder. I want to try some different flavours this weekend: pork and apple burgers, and salmon and feta cheese burgers. I’ll let you know how they come out.

I have a LOT more food pics and recipes to share. In fact, I cut this post in half because it was getting too long. It seems I am even more passionate about food than I thought. 🙂

Isn’t food ADDICTIVE to write about?
This was fun to read, Shakirah! lol
The Chicken…I started with a capital letter. Doesn’t that tell you how much reverence I have for your Stepmom’s dish? *raises arms in the air and bends making bowing motion
Have to finagle a invite to one of these lunches, man! :p
With you on making your own burgers! Next time, try bread crumbs as your binding agent – much better texture. Sometimes I even put a lump of cheese in the middle and call it a “cheese bomb”.
(Lawd, don’t get me started about food; I’m JUST as bad!)

It was fun! And I have so many food pics in my phone (from home and restaurants) that I could blog daily about it. Stepmudda is a boss. That is all.

Will bring some burgers for you. You are reading my mind because I bought some wholewheat breadcrumbs to try instead of the oats. I will do the “cheese bomb” (lol) with the salmon and feta burgers. Oh man, good thing I am at the gym because it is hard to write about food without eating lol

Some observations:
1. Shakirah has never taken me by her ‘stepmudda’ -_- That will have to be changed soon.
2. I don’t like beans though I love vegetables…
3. It is not white rice if it has stuff in it other than the water it was cooked in. It is flavoured rice. We’d probably call it pig tail rice. I still want to eat it though it offends my white rice sensibilities
4. This is the longest blog that you have written. It’s no surprise it was about food, you foodie. (I don’t mean that as a curse as a foodie myself.
5. I expect you to cook for me next time we see each other…
ps I am off to the kitchen thanks to this blog

1. I’ll get her to prepare a meal for you when you come back to Bim.
2. I STILL feel disturbed that I like beans. I started with bora, then black beans, and now I am smacking my lips at kidney beans. So strange…
3. I love cultural differences! To us, if it look white, it is white rice. Although she puts some seasonings in it is very subtle, so some people would still use a bit of gravy. You will see when you try some.
4. I cut the blog in half! I had so many pics, but I quickly realised that – along with my commentary- It was would be way too long. I think it is the start of something beautiful 🙂
5. I will.

Loved this! I’ll just have to be content with staring at the wonderful chicken on the screen and try to forget the fact that all I have with me for lunch is Heinz tomato soup… from a tube! Tragic! I really like the idea of the black bean salad too, I’ll definitely have a go at making this when the snow stops. Salad requires some sun, I feel!